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In good weather, in my early childhood, I would wait on the top step of our porch every day for our mailman so that I could take delivery of our mail and then rush it indoors to my mom. Otherwise, the mail, a mix of bills and personal letters, written by family and friends from around the country, was left in the mailbox next to our front door.

For me, if there’s anything more beautiful than wildflowers right now, it’s those yellowish orange fruits growing on deep-green trees that you can find all over central Texas. I am talking about loquats, which despite the name, are unrelated to kumquats but are equally as tasty. If your only experience of loquat fruit has come from the dessert bar at a Chinese buffet, you don’t know what you been missing! Those little, syrup-canned spheres most likely came from Japan, Israel, or Brazil. Because fresh loquats bruise and spoil easily, they had to travel processed and canned, and these, while good are not nearly as tasty as one picked right off the tree. Unprocessed, they’re nutritional powerhouses well worth growing in your yard.